Actual Infinities

[Alex K]

An object can only be capable of being known if there is an observer capable of knowing about it.

Do objects possess any qualities absent of perception or do such properties, whether primary or secondary, subsist only in the knower? If they exist solely in the knowing subject and not in the known object, then what is an object and in what way do these exist outside of the mind? If qualities such such as shape, extension, location, etc. are intrinsic to the nature of objects that exist in an external void, known or otherwise, then they possess distinct features from which logical principles necessarily follow. Thus, humans didn't "invent" reason, they discovered it through the intellectual faculty categorizing sense data of external properties. Similarly, the rules that govern mathematical relationships are known as a result of discovery by the intellect in the same way that knowledge of external objects is acquired through such senses as "sight" or "touch". It isn't necessarily the case that I'm not a brain in a vat, but I see no reason to begin with that premise.

Isn't there a third possibility - that the objects (the world) indeed exist outside of the mind, but are not in their nature the same as the representations of them in our minds - e.g. they may inspire logic and reason, because evolutionarily, logic and reason are successful strategies for interacting with them - but that does not mean that they themselves possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason?